Euron Greyjoy
Euron Greyjoy is one of the main antagonists from the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R.R. Martin, and its TV series adaptation Game of Thrones. He is the younger brother of King Balon Greyjoy, the older brother of Victarion, Urrigon, and Aeron, and the captain of the pirateship The Silence. A wild, reckless, and unpredictable pirate, during the Kingsmoot Euron acts like he loves Ironborn culture and wants the best for his people, but he actually cares only about himself and he loves being at the center of attention around the world. He is not capable of real love, having started to kill family members and sexually abuse them in young age, and has no particular beliefs in life, gods, or loved ones and only lives to watch the world suffer. Euron in the books is considered one of the most depraved and ruthless characters in the series and is often compared with the likes of Ramsay Bolton and Rorge when it comes to cruelty (much like Ramsay, who is prone to flaying, Euron cuts out the tongues of his recruits, likely to protect the secrets of his journeys and powers, yet he also does it to his victims and prisoners for no apparent reason). In contrast to the likes of Ramsay, however, Euron is far more cunning, calculative and ambitious and (much like Tywin Lannister and Stannis Baratheon) is highly skilled in both warfare and politics. Euron is also capable of being extremely charming and charismatic in almost any circumstance, which makes him incredibly dangerous and one of the most influential men in Westeros. In many ways, he is the feared ruler that Joffrey and Ramsay only wished to be and has both authority and power to back him up in his evil plans. In the TV series, he serves as a supporting antagonist in Season 6, one of the two secondary antagonists of Season 7 (alongside Petyr Baelish) and the secondary antagonist of Season 8. In the novels, he serves as the secondary antagonist in A Feast for Crows, and is the primary antagonist in the storylines of Aeron, Asha and Victarion. He is foreshadowed to be a future major threat to Daenerys Targaryen and is set to be one of the main antagonists of the upcoming sixth novel The Winds of Winter. In the TV series, he was portrayed by , who also played Wafner in Overlord. Appearance The way Euron physically looks differs depending on version. In the novels, Euron is pale skinned and handsome, with black hair and a black beard. His lips are tinted pale blue due to his habit of drinking "shade of the evening." He wears an eye-patch over his left eye, earning him the nickname "Crow's Eye." According to his nephew Theon, the eyepatch hides a "black eye shining with malice." His right eye is a deep blue, and is often referred to as his "smiling eye." In the TV series, Euron's looks are quite simillar with the ones of his nephew Theon, as described by many articles about the HBO series. Euron has light brown hair and no eyepatch nor blue lips. Although he's Balon's eldest brother, Euron is said to look unchanged after Greyjoy's Rebellion and all the years he was away after that. Euron looks younger than his brothers Victarion and Aeron; the way he still looks the same young man as years ago is considered unnatural by his brothers and his people, hinting that he has been using blood magic to slow his aging. When Aeron and Victarion meet Euron again, they think that he looks exactly as he did the day he went into exile. He is still impossibly youthful, while his younger brothers are old-looking. Personality Euron is a wildly unpredictable, aggressive, and cruel man, who is known for his delight in playing mind games and waging psychological warfare on anyone around him. This has made him hated by all of his brothers, especially Victarion. He is considered too evil even for ironborn standards and his unnatural presence makes everyone uneasy. Euron loves to boast about his great deeds and talks a lot about himself, reacting with cold fury if questioned about his journeys. His years of exile and stories about his many travels have made him a living legend among the ironborn, to the point of becoming a sort of messiah. However, Euron has no complete control over the ironmen, as there are still many who challenge his crown and plans. He is a serial kinslayer, a skilled warrior and manipulator and is cunning, shrewd and ruthless. He also possess a strong sense of narcissism and sees himself as some kind of a god. Unlike his brothers and many popular ironborn warriors, Euron is very good at strategy, and he is also very good with manipulation, politics, and military tactics. In contrast, Joffery Baratheon was an arrogant, petty fool prone to random outbursts of anger, obsessed with the title of king he believed he inherited, even though he was little more than a puppet backed up by his grandfather Tywin. Joffrey never actually wielded a weapon, however, usually making a cowardly retreat when confronted with real danger. Ramsay Bolton was sadistic and personally dangerous, capable of great violence and torment against people he had already captured, but he didn't have any true authority to back it up, and an impulsive, childish need to brutalize people for transient amusement (i.e. hunting women for sport and flaying men alive who disobeyed him, then leaving them on public display) with no thought to the long-term repercussions. Ramsay only knew random force and was in no way skilled at diplomacy, alienating potential allies. Euron Greyjoy, meanwhile, isn't impulsive but capable of cunning long-term strategies, and unlike both of them, is actually capable of being extremely charming when the situation arises. Euron needed to win over the ironborn to elect him king willingly, playing to their admiration for strength and audacity, while making grandiose promises. In many ways, Euron is the feared ruler that Joffrey and Ramsay wished they could be: genuinely dangerous and cunning, with a well-earned reputation, the authority to back it up, and a gift for long-term manipulation. He is also a very powerful, persuasive, magnificent, and convincing actor, deceiving anyone around him by acting like a great and generous leader who gives all the fruits of his raidings and castles to the ironmen and leaves nothing for himself. In reality it always turns out to be part of his evil plans, and he is so good at manipulating everything to make the water flow on his way that he manages to get every attention, with everyone speaking about his great impossible deeds, even making a cult about him. Euron is also very greedy, not content with ruling only the Iron Islands or caring about them, he wants to conquer all of Westeros and sit on the Iron Throne, apparently just because he can (and this only a first step, as he talks about becoming God). He is described as a very dangerous and vengeful man who is able to become richer than most of the Westeros lords by pirating other ships and stealing their goods. He is incredibly rich enough to give up a huge amount of treasure to the ironmen, in order to win their favor. He was reckless and insane enough to sail to the ruins of Old Valyria and return alive with a real old Valyrian armor. For an unknown reason, possibly simple cruelty, he personally cuts the tongues out of the men serving on his terrifying ship Silence. It is highly likely that Euron removed their tongues in order to keep the secrets within him and his crew. His men are known as "Euron's mutes". He has never been married and he fathered numerous bastard children throughout the world, but has no regard for any of them. It is mentioned in the books that he brought 3 bastard sons to present as his champions to the Kingsmoot, but only one is briefly described, a 10-year-old boy with woolly hair and mud-brown skin, apparently fathered on a woman from Sothoryos or the Summer Islands. Euron couldn't care any less for his illegitimate children, bluntly saying that he gives as much thought to the bastards he has produced as to the contents he produces in his chamber pot. Euron his strongly opposed against every religion of the world: with sorcery he has visions and dreams very similar to Bran Stark's dreams. He is aware of the Red Priests' omens and he is likely aware of the prophesied Long Night that Never Ends that will see the world filled with darkness and demons and evil beings once again. Euron believes that the world is coming to an end and he proclaims himself the sole new God to replace all the other gods of men in the world, then remake the world as he wants. Euron taunts the ironborn culture by claiming to be the real Storm God (the "evil god" of the Ironborn) and the Drowned God in one person. He disdainfully finds the culture of the Iron Islands worthless and its taboos, beliefs and faith mean nothing to him, being disdaindul and annoyed at the ironborn traditions. He has saw a lot of foreign religions and takes great pride at destroying a person's faith and defile every religious belief of the world. Nothing in life is sacred to him. Euron is also considered untrustworthy and manipulative for alliances, as Euron's only friend is Euron himself. Also making him angry is the best way to see his true colors. He is also shown to be sadistic and cold-hearted, as he takes joy in humiliating his enemies in front of everyone, including tormenting all his family members, who all hate him. He personally chooses sadistic ways to kill his enemies based on their characteristics (like cutting in seven pieces Lord Blacktyde in the books, who worshipped the Seven or killing Sand Snakes with their own weapons that defined their powers in the show). He loves to torment people by messing with their heads, playing mindgames, and psychological warfare. Euron does not go in search for whores and prefers having many sexual relationships with various women. He is charming and acts like a nice boyfriend to young girls, making children with them, promising them marriage, happiness, and more. As soon as he gets bored of the girls, Euron simply cuts their tongues, strips them naked in front of everyone and his crew, and either gives them away as slaves or throws them into the sea. He is no beyond letting his crews share his former girlfriends, like he is no beyond incest. Euron can take his male sons in his own crew and cuts their tongues like everyone else, as a bastard son of his was present with him during the Kingsmoot. Trivia *While in the novels, it is theorized that Euron hires a Faceless Man to assassinate Balon, in the TV series, Euron kills Balon himself. There is a theory he used the dragon egg he had as a payment to the Faceless Men for Balon's murder. *In the TV Series, Euron is not seen using magic and wins the Kingsmoot without using the Dragon Horn. **The HBO Viewer's Guide family tree still lists Euron as older than Aeron Greyjoy - despite the fact that TV-Aeron is presented as an older priest with greying hair. Thus it might be a plot point even in the TV show that Euron's appearance hasn't changed - possibly due to the dark arts he learned in his voyages. *Euron's appearance in the TV Series is more plain and normal without the blue lips and an eyepatch. The actor claimed that the eyepatch was not used as it would be too much of a cliché. *George R.R. Martin compares Euron with Ramsay. *There is a fan speculation that Euron has some control over Victarion via either of the two people he has given him as servants: Maester Kerwin and the mute dusky woman. *Actor Pilou Asbæk later directly confirmed in pre-Season 7 interviews that "The guy you met at the Kingsmoot is not the guy you will meet on his ship — he’s different with different people to get what he wants". **Euron actually does have a somewhat similar act in the novels - tailoring his manipulations to the mental level of his audience. When he is feasting his men after their victory in the Shield Islands he heaps them with praise and panders to their basic attitudes to rape-pillage-and-burn, but in private he shows a much higher level of intellect and expresses disdain for the ironborn who he has duped into following him with false gifts and empty praise. *In the television series, Euron's character has been merged with his brother Victarion (who was cut from the show), as he is seen fighting the same way Victarion does in the books, with an axe combined with Euron's insanity. In the novels, Euron does mostly strategy and politics, but prefers others do the fighting for him. His battleaxe is wrought in the shape of a golden kraken, a reference to Victarion, who wields a similar weapon. *In the television series, the story revolving around Euron against his brothers has been given to Yara (Asha in the show) and Theon, who both have a greater enmity towards their uncle than in the novels. Whether this means they might get Aeron and Urrigon's backstory with Euron is still unconfirmed. Aeron's opinion on Euron in the show is unknown and since there is no given reason for Euron's exile in the show, it is theorized that Balon might have banished Euron for sexual abuse towards Yara and Theon when they were children. In the books Balon exiled Euron for disgracing Victarion by impregnating the latter's wife, so in the show Euron might have been caught raping Yara as a child, after Robert's Rebellion (thus when Theon was already gone) and got banished by Balon for it, merging Victarion and Aeron's stories with Theon and Yara. *Like the novels, season 7 of the TV series introduces a personal sigil for Euron, but because he isn't missing an eye in the TV version and is never called Crow's Eye, the crow element was removed, and just combined with the regular Greyjoy heraldry: as a result, Euron's personal sigil in the TV version is a gold kraken on a black field, with a third red eye inscribed onto the head of the kraken. *The Iron Fleet is known for being able to defeat everyone at sea and Stannis Baratheon was the only one who succeeded to destroy it, with Victarion remembering it as a nightmare and his only defeat. Both books and show mentioned the Battle off Fair Isle as one of Stannis's best achievements, and since the show has merged Euron with Victarion, Stannis was the only person to defeat Euron at sea. Navigation Category:Pirates Category:Game of Thrones Villains Category:Dark Fantasy Villains Category:Book Villains Category:Lover Stealers Category:Misogynists Category:Monarchs Category:Wealthy Category:Extravagant Category:Thief Category:Murderer Category:Male Category:Mongers Category:Gaolers Category:Kidnapper Category:Power Hungry Category:Psychopath Category:Greedy Category:Slaver Category:Tyrants Category:Military Category:Provoker Category:Charismatic Category:Faux Affably Evil Category:Neutral Evil Category:Pimps Category:Thrill-Seekers Category:Master Orator Category:Hegemony Category:Mutilators Category:Torturer Category:Rapists Category:Traitor Category:Leader Category:Archenemy Category:Sadists Category:Outcast Category:Abusers Category:Strategic Category:Addicts Category:Terrorists Category:TV Show Villains Category:Live Action Villains Category:Related to Hero Category:Titular Category:God Wannabe Category:Egotist Category:Delusional Category:Perverts Category:Magic Category:Psychological Abusers Category:Destroyer of Innocence Category:Aristocrats Category:Homicidal Category:Supremacists Category:Type Dependent on Version Category:Heretics Category:Defilers Category:Warlords Category:Usurper Category:Parents Category:Anarchist Category:Brutes Category:Nihilists Category:Mind-Breakers Category:Liars Category:Stalkers Category:Control Freaks Category:Master of Hero Category:Trickster Category:Opportunists Category:Arrogant Category:Enigmatic Category:Oppressors Category:Deal Makers Category:Social Darwinists Category:Bond Destroyers Category:Siblings Category:Mastermind Category:Corrupting Influence Category:Fighters Category:Status Dependent on Version Category:Deceased Category:Animal Cruelty Category:One-Man Army